In terms of optimization I'm not fully sure what you mean by this. Do you mean the FPS, memory usage or loading times? These are the three big performance metrics for Heroes.

Personally, waiting times (loadings included) as it makes you don't want to play the game - that was the thing I disliked in H5TotE - waiting for AI. (Thank you Quantomas!!! )
____________
"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN

if expressions of contempt for your audience are really the only rejoinders you have in your arsenal, I honestly have to say I wish you and your studio ill tidings in turn, and that the failure of Heroes 7, can only be the chickens coming home to roost (while, believe it or not, I felt legitimate pity for Limbic before) lol

I don't care about you
Also you're not really my audience.

frostymuaddib said:

Oakwarrior said:

In terms of optimization I'm not fully sure what you mean by this. Do you mean the FPS, memory usage or loading times? These are the three big performance metrics for Heroes.

Personally, waiting times (loadings included) as it makes you don't want to play the game - that was the thing I disliked in H5TotE - waiting for AI. (Thank you Quantomas!!! )

That's something where we have quite little room. There's 2 main choices for loading in stuff for games: on start-up and on-demand. If you do a lot of loading on start-up, then starting the game will take long, and will consume a lot of memory immediately. If you defer it to when a session starts, you will have longer loading during the session. There's also the option additionally to load stuff during the session. In total, you can approximately aggregate a "grand total" loading time for all your assets. Then you have to decide at which point this happens. When it comes to H7 I think it's already spread quite well, unless you're okay with creatures popping into existence when they come into view (I don't think this would ever be approved anyway ). For the AI, I have one idea how to improve it, because I still feel it could be faster, but I've yet to test it.

Oakwarrior said:When it comes to H7 I think it's already spread quite well, unless you're okay with creatures popping into existence when they come into view (I don't think this would ever be approved anyway ).

Can you please explain this a little? 'view' means player's screen? If that is the case, it would mean that creatures would load only when player can see them, which (if I understood correctly) sounds like a good idea.

EDIT:

To be clear, AI in H7 is much faster than in H5TotE ____________
"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN

Oakwarrior said:When it comes to H7 I think it's already spread quite well, unless you're okay with creatures popping into existence when they come into view (I don't think this would ever be approved anyway ).

Can you please explain this a little? 'view' means player's screen? If that is the case, it would mean that creatures would load only when player can see them, which (if I understood correctly) sounds like a good idea.

Yes, basically the "camera view", it's what the player sees in the program viewport. If we do that then it will introduce popping. Meaning that when you pan your screen or switch your view from the minimap, assets would not be immediately visible but they would appear, one by one, over time, depending on how fast your RAM and storage drive is, basically.

EDIT: The AI may be faster but I think it can always be even faster... It's one of my main gripes with Heroes games.

Oakwarrior said:
Yes, basically the "camera view", it's what the player sees in the program viewport. If we do that then it will introduce popping. Meaning that when you pan your screen or switch your view from the minimap, assets would not be immediately visible but they would appear, one by one, over time, depending on how fast your RAM and storage drive is, basically.

Hmmm, ok. Now, I have to ask (and keep in mind that I'm no game developer ) wouldn't it be possible to create something like a 'hidden' camera view (my terminology sux ) that would be bigger than the real one (the real one would be nested in the center of the 'hidden')? So you could load the stuff that comes into the hidden camera view, and when it comes to the real view, it would be already loaded, and there would be no popping up.
____________
"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN

Oakwarrior said:
Yes, basically the "camera view", it's what the player sees in the program viewport. If we do that then it will introduce popping. Meaning that when you pan your screen or switch your view from the minimap, assets would not be immediately visible but they would appear, one by one, over time, depending on how fast your RAM and storage drive is, basically.

Hmmm, ok. Now, I have to ask (and keep in mind that I'm no game developer ) wouldn't it be possible to create something like a 'hidden' camera view (my terminology sux ) that would be bigger than the real one (the real one would be nested in the center of the 'hidden')? So you could load the stuff that comes into the hidden camera view, and when it comes to the real view, it would be already loaded, and there would be no popping up.

You underestimate how slow RAM and HDD's can be
Of course you can do this, but the loading itself just takes time.

Stevie said:That's called preloading and games like Starcraft 2 have it.

Not sure which part of the loading you're talking about. Starcraft 2 loads all its assets in based on which units are involved in a map and once the map is loaded that's it for that map. Once you go back to the menu the stuff is un-loaded. There is no loading of assets when you build your first Marauder from a barracks for example. That would be ludicrous in an RTS game where twitch reflexes are king.

Oakwarrior said:You underestimate how slow RAM and HDD's can be
Of course you can do this, but the loading itself just takes time.

Of course it can be slow... But it does seem as a good compromise. If I'm right, first person games do that (or something similar)? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Skyrim does that: when you are on the world map it loads only what you see (or what is around you, I'm no expert). I doubt that it loads entire world map. And Skyrim works good even on slow machines.

Oakwarrior said:
Not sure which part of the loading you're talking about. Starcraft 2 loads all its assets in based on which units are involved in a map and once the map is loaded that's it for that map. Once you go back to the menu the stuff is un-loaded. There is no loading of assets when you build your first Marauder from a barracks for example. That would be ludicrous in an RTS game where twitch reflexes are king.

Oakwarrior said:You underestimate how slow RAM and HDD's can be
Of course you can do this, but the loading itself just takes time.

Of course it can be slow... But it does seem as a good compromise. If I'm right, first person games do that (or something similar)? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Skyrim does that: when you are on the world map it loads only what you see (or what is around you, I'm no expert). I doubt that it loads entire world map. And Skyrim works good even on slow machines.

Oakwarrior said:
Not sure which part of the loading you're talking about. Starcraft 2 loads all its assets in based on which units are involved in a map and once the map is loaded that's it for that map. Once you go back to the menu the stuff is un-loaded. There is no loading of assets when you build your first Marauder from a barracks for example. That would be ludicrous in an RTS game where twitch reflexes are king.

You Terran scum

Yes, FPS games can utilize this to GREAT extent because you are constrained to your character's view. One game that has a bad time doing this right now is No Man's Sky, and also, to an extent, Mankind Divided. Skyrim does this as well, yes but successfully. Top-down games will suffer from it more, no matter which game. I think anyone who makes decisions about the visuals about any Heroes game would not approve of popping

And I'm more of a Zerg guy myself >_> Even though I hate the race I seem to play best with them.

Stevie said:That's called preloading and games like Starcraft 2 have it.

Not sure which part of the loading you're talking about. Starcraft 2 loads all its assets in based on which units are involved in a map and once the map is loaded that's it for that map. Once you go back to the menu the stuff is un-loaded. There is no loading of assets when you build your first Marauder from a barracks for example. That would be ludicrous in an RTS game where twitch reflexes are king.

I realized it might be unrelated. There's a user map called Unit Preloader which hovers over every unit, building and animation so that whatever stutter might occur from loading them occurs then and there and not in a real game. It's near mandatory for pvp.
____________Guide to a Great Heroes GameThe Young Traveler

Skyrim and, since I still prefer to work on it, Oblivion have a different system of loading assets.

Interiors are in a single cell (even though I never found their bounds, never thought of it), while the exterior world is in multiple cells, in short, when in the overworld the game loads a square of 5x5 cells, everytime the player moves from one cell to another the game loads the cells that are included in the new square with the center you're standing on, while the cells that are outside the square are unloaded.

This way too distant assets don't impact too much the local memory.

That's basically how it works, but the scale and perspective of the game means that such a rendering system can't be applied to a TBS, due to the scrolling speed of the map, or clicking a point in the mini-map.

Theoretically, if you implemented full screen GUI elements, like the heroes page, or Town-screens (I believe they are windowed?), you could try to unload the assets that are far from the neighbouring limits of the current view, thus lessening the impact while in a screen, and maybe, do the same while the game transitions from a battle to the adventure map, maybe unloading completely all adventure assets while the game is in the battle-scene.

Of course, I don't know how the game handles this, so it may as well do that already, I don't have a way to check since I don't own the game...

Stevie said:That's called preloading and games like Starcraft 2 have it.

Not sure which part of the loading you're talking about. Starcraft 2 loads all its assets in based on which units are involved in a map and once the map is loaded that's it for that map. Once you go back to the menu the stuff is un-loaded. There is no loading of assets when you build your first Marauder from a barracks for example. That would be ludicrous in an RTS game where twitch reflexes are king.

I realized it might be unrelated. There's a user map called Unit Preloader which hovers over every unit, building and animation so that whatever stutter might occur from loading them occurs then and there and not in a real game. It's near mandatory for pvp.

Correct, this can be used to boost loading times by keeping stuff in memory
It's not really mandatory, I haven't ever used it and I don't suffer from any loading bottlenecks anyway, but it does have an impact.

Oakwarrior said:
Yes, FPS games can utilize this to GREAT extent because you are constrained to your character's view.

Aren't you constrained to your camera view here?

Oakwarrior said:
One game that has a bad time doing this right now is No Man's Sky, and also, to an extent, Mankind Divided.

Heard about that.

Oakwarrior said:
Skyrim does this as well, yes but successfully. Top-down games will suffer from it more, no matter which game. I think anyone who makes decisions about the visuals about any Heroes game would not approve of popping

Well, if I understood, the point of this is to avoid popping (the 'hidden' view I mentioned)?

Oakwarrior said:
Yes, FPS games can utilize this to GREAT extent because you are constrained to your character's view.

Aren't you constrained to your camera view here?

Oakwarrior said:
One game that has a bad time doing this right now is No Man's Sky, and also, to an extent, Mankind Divided.

Heard about that.

Oakwarrior said:
Skyrim does this as well, yes but successfully. Top-down games will suffer from it more, no matter which game. I think anyone who makes decisions about the visuals about any Heroes game would not approve of popping

Well, if I understood, the point of this is to avoid popping (the 'hidden' view I mentioned)?

The constraint is much more loose. Compare it to flying in a plane and looking down on the land vs walking around on the street. Of course it all comes down to the assets and how the view is set up, but FPS games have an edge when it comes to that.

And yes, you can introduce this kind of shadow-loading, but since all hardware is different you can never reliably say that assets will be loaded once they pop into view, and pausing/hanging the game while the loading is still taking place is not exactly desireable behaviour.

Oakwarrior said:
And yes, you can introduce this kind of shadow-loading, but since all hardware is different you can never reliably say that assets will be loaded once they pop into view, and pausing/hanging the game while the loading is still taking place is not exactly desireable behaviour.

Agreed. But same argument can applied to current scenario. You have terrible loading times on some machines when starting/loading the game. And as Sal said, this kind of game expects save/load, so that becomes undesirable as well.
____________
"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN

Oak, that is all nice and well, but after 2.0 I have been trying 2 maps and encountered a couple of bugs, one of them not allowing my heroes to interact with weekly resource giving buildings like the Warehouse. 11 months after game release this bug must be well-known. The fact that it's not fixed may mean:
a) until now there has been more important stuff to fix;
b) it can't be fixed
c) the source of the bug hasn't been found yet
d) no one is bothering?

Nothing of this is good.
Now, there obviously has been a problem with skills/abilities disappearing after saving/loading. How on EARTH could that bug survive QC? That's MOST awkward, considering that this has been delayed a couple of months anyway.

That the game as such is no that great, ok, no surprise there, but the amount of technical problems seems staggering - I mean, if you have a really GREAT game, people are more inclined to be patient and all, to put up with some shortcomings, because all in all it may be worth it. But if you don't deliver a good game in the first place, AT LEAST it should run like a charm.

Oakwarrior said:
And yes, you can introduce this kind of shadow-loading, but since all hardware is different you can never reliably say that assets will be loaded once they pop into view, and pausing/hanging the game while the loading is still taking place is not exactly desireable behaviour.

Agreed. But same argument can applied to current scenario. You have terrible loading times on some machines when starting/loading the game. And as Sal said, this kind of game expects save/load, so that becomes undesirable as well.

Yep. In that case it can quickly become a discussion of visual presentation. I for one would be fine with potential asset-popping (even if I have a great machine at home and I won't notice it or even have it) but stakeholders might not agree.

JollyJoker said:Oak, that is all nice and well, but after 2.0 I have been trying 2 maps and encountered a couple of bugs, one of them not allowing my heroes to interact with weekly resource giving buildings like the Warehouse. 11 months after game release this bug must be well-known. The fact that it's not fixed may mean:
a) until now there has been more important stuff to fix;
b) it can't be fixed
c) the source of the bug hasn't been found yet
d) no one is bothering?

Nothing of this is good.
Now, there obviously has been a problem with skills/abilities disappearing after saving/loading. How on EARTH could that bug survive QC? That's MOST awkward, considering that this has been delayed a couple of months anyway.

That the game as such is no that great, ok, no surprise there, but the amount of technical problems seems staggering - I mean, if you have a really GREAT game, people are more inclined to be patient and all, to put up with some shortcomings, because all in all it may be worth it. But if you don't deliver a good game in the first place, AT LEAST it should run like a charm.

Well, I suggest you ask our QC..

And yes we were even confident that it's fixed now with the latest hotfix. It's not the case. We're going for another route now for this issue and hope that if it works, the OK we get from QC this time around actually has substance to it

Oakwarrior said:
Yep. In that case it can quickly become a discussion of visual presentation. I for one would be fine with potential asset-popping (even if I have a great machine at home and I won't notice it or even have it) but stakeholders might not agree.

Well, we can agree on one thing I wouldn't mind popping assets So basically, this was not decision made by programmers?
____________
"Occam's shuriken: when the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas." -- Dr. Gordon Freeman (Freeman's Mind)
"lol" -- VERRIKER VON ERWINSSEN

Oakwarrior said:
Yep. In that case it can quickly become a discussion of visual presentation. I for one would be fine with potential asset-popping (even if I have a great machine at home and I won't notice it or even have it) but stakeholders might not agree.

Well, we can agree on one thing I wouldn't mind popping assets So basically, this was not decision made by programmers?

There are very few decisions that programmers make, especially when it comes to visuals.